Textiles

The textile conservation team is responsible for the preservation, conservation and display of the museum's textile collection, which includes approximately 20,000 objects, including textiles from antiquity, historical costumes, tapestries, textile art and contemporary fashion

The department contributes to the research, documentation and scientific analysis of textiles.

Since textiles cannot typically support their own weight, all textile objects require some form of customised support to be displayed. This includes, for example, large flat textiles supported on display boards or garments mounted on mannequins. Garments from different time periods require different supports to achieve an accurate historical silhouette. Textiles are both fragile and often large, so a key part of the work is adapting handling and mounting to specific requirements.

The unique material properties of textiles make the lending and borrowing of textile works both challenging and complex.